After waging a war on the pretext of stopping Iran from developing nuclear weapons, the US and Israel have ignited a new arms race
3-MIN READ3-MIN ListenAlex LoAlex Lo has been an SCMP columnist since 2012, covering major issues affecting Hong Kong and the rest of China. Published: 8:30pm, 5 May 2026Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and successive US presidents have spent the better part of the past three decades warning that a nuclear-armed Iran would threaten the whole world. Now, thanks to the illegal US-Israeli war, Iran may have to go nuclear by claiming self-defence.After all, what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Israel would justify its clandestine nuclear weapon programme, which dates back to the 1950s, by claiming Arab states wanted to exterminate it. Well, what did US President Donald Trump post on Truth Social recently? “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”And, talking about extermination, what Israel has been doing in Gaza and southern Lebanon speaks for itself.
People have long been used to Netanyahu crying wolf with his unrelenting but specious warnings about Iran’s nuclear programme for almost as long as he has been in office.
Now, perhaps due to the sheer criminality and brutality of the joint Israeli-American war, even some Western media outlets have become, if not sympathetic, at least less critical of a potentially nuclear-armed Iran. Others are warning of a new round of nuclear proliferation among so-called middle powers.
“Iran didn’t have a nuclear weapon before this war. But you can see why it would develop one now,” reads a headline by Guardian columnist Simon Tisdall. “If lawless aggression by ‘might is right’ nuclear-armed powers spreads unchecked, what other option do middle-ranking countries have?”
